Return to torture

On Monday, the Pentagon announced that two prisoners had been released from Guantánamo. Abd al-Nisr Mohammed Khantumani, a 50-year old Syrian (also known as Abdul Nasir al-Tumani) was given a new home in Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony off the West African coast, while Abdul Aziz Naji, a 35-year old Algerian, was repatriated to [...]

Three weeks ago, as I explained in an article at the time, the BBC’s Newsnight broadcast an extraordinary insight into the bleak conditions under which Hussain Alsamamara, a Jordanian terror suspect held under a form of house arrest, is obliged to live. Like a few dozen other terror suspects — both British and foreign nationals [...]

On Wednesday, the BBC’s Newsnight broadcast an extraordinary insight into the bleak conditions under which Hussain Alsamamara, a Jordanian terror suspect held under a form of house arrest, is obliged to live. Like a few dozen other terror suspects — both British and foreign nationals — who are confined to their homes for up to [...]

To complement my recent article, “UN Human Rights Council Discusses Secret Detention Report,” in which I explained how, two weeks ago, the UN Human Rights Council had — after some delays — finally discussed the findings of the “Joint Study on Global Practices in Relation to Secret Detention in the Context of Counter-Terrorism,” a detailed, [...]

On April 19, Mustapha Labsi, an Algerian terror suspect shuttled around prisons in Europe since his arrest in the UK in February 2001, lost his struggle to resist being forcibly repatriated. Labsi was returned to Algeria from Slovakia, even though, as Amnesty International explained, this was “in clear violation of Slovakia’s international obligations.” Pointing out [...]

The case of Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian who sought asylum in the UK, and lived here for nearly three years, has long been a source of concern for human rights activists. Although he was cleared for release from Guantánamo in 2007, he is terrified of returning to Algeria, and with good reason. Although he left [...]

As rumors swirl, suggesting that a number of the remaining 13 Uighur prisoners in Guantánamo (Muslims from China’s Xinjiang province) may soon be relocating to the tiny Pacific island state of Palau, a court case relating to nine of these men threatens to hurl a number of other prisoners in Guantánamo, who have also been [...]

Imagine if you were imprisoned for seven years without charge or trial, and then a judge ruled that the government’s case against you consisted solely of unreliable allegations made by other prisoners who were tortured, coerced, bribed or suffering from mental health issues, and a “mosaic” of intelligence, purporting to rise to the level of [...]

Two weeks ago, the indefatigable Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald, Guantánamo’s most dedicated reporter, outlined the story of Umar Abdulayev, the last Tajik prisoner in Guantánamo, who has been cleared for release from the prison on two occasions — once by a military review board under the Bush administration, and six weeks ago by [...]

Following a visit to Washington D.C. on 1 and 2 June, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council Of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, has sent a letter to all 47 Council of Europe member states urging them to follow the example already provided by Albania, France, Sweden and the UK in accepting “cleared” prisoners from Guantánamo who cannot [...]